My Name is Rey
by Tauriel Skywalker
Summary: Who is this mysterious girl from Tatooine? Is she Force sensitive? What is her connection, if any to the, Skywalkers? Can she survive the harsh climate and vicious creatures of the desert planet long enough to find her place in the galaxy? Follow Rey through her journey as she tries learn what happened to her family when the only clue she has is in a letter she can't read.
1. Prologue

Author's Note: I don't own Star Wars. Please enjoy.

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My name is Rey. Beyond that, I don't know much about myself.

I was raised by a Tusken woman named Reena. When I began remembering things, I don't remember seeing anything. I remember hearing. I knew that I was loved and that I was safe as long as her voice was with me. She me told me our story many times. She told me the story over and over, again and again, until I could recite it word for word, even before I even understood what most of those words meant. But somehow I always knew she had always left some parts out.

Reena often told me of her life before she settled in this region. She made it clear to me right from the get-go that she was not my mother, but for me, she was the closest thing to a mother anyone could wish for. She wasn't a part of any tribe. Shortly after I was born, she was forced to wonder the desert in search of a place where we could live with minimal fear of starvation. Most of the time she could barely find enough to keep herself from starving, let alone an infant as well. For years, Reena wondered the desert with no place to call home. A lone sand-woman was suspicious in itself. But she had also been rebellious, though subdued, in her own tribe. Also, the other tribes of sand-people did not welcome the idea of letting in a woman from the tribe that disappeared in one night. Some tribes took her in for a time, but she never stayed long. Finally though, she found a stable way of living, though it still involved movement. She had a tent outside of a less threatening tribe that was not far out of sight of the town of Mos Eisley. How we survived until then, I have no idea. But in this place she could be protected by a tribe that didn't completely shun her, and still travel to the town to work in disguise so she could earn the things we needed to survive. In this way, she was able to raise me.

As far as I was concerned, I was a part of the sand-people. I spoke their language, but it hurt my throat. I wore their dress, though I couldn't stand the goggles and head wrap. I lived in the tent outside the camp, I went gathering with the people, and I stayed away from those who were not sand-people. Despite Reena's story and the proof I saw and felt on my skin, I thought I was a sand-girl. By the time I was twelve I was obviously taller than most of the sand-people. When we were inside our tent, Reena and I would take our gloves and head wraps off. I was sun-burnt most of the time and my skin was smooth except where it had been gashed by the sand. Reena had very rough and wrinkled skin which the sand didn't seem to bother. Everything about her, even her voice was dry. But I knew that the only difference between her and me was that she and the other sand-people had had many generation to adapt to the desert's harsh climate whereas apparently my ancestors had not.

When I was a little older, it hit me that the years she spoke of in the story didn't match up. According to the story, she had been wondering for years before she settled down. I was sure I would have remembered traveling that much. But the only home I knew was in the tent outside the village. I was blind when I started to remember hearing Reena's voice, but I still think I would have known if we had been moving that much.

I wasn't supposed to tell Reena's and my story to the other sand-people of the tribe, but I had learned listen well and to ask questions without arousing suspicion. No one seemed to know where the tribe I was born in had been, but the tale of its disappearance had been told to most of the adults in the village by their parents. The tribe was destroyed decades ago. I had been growing for only fourteen years, but it seemed that I was more than three times my own age.

I need to ask Reena about this when she gets back from Mos Eisley tomorrow morning.


	2. How Did My Mother Die?

Author's Note: I'm pretty much a movie based fan and don't get much more information on the Star Wars universe than that. Thank you for the reviews. This is my first fan fiction, and I am excited to see that people have already read it. This story is basically my idea as to who Rey might be. I haven't seen the movie yet (it's released tonight where I live, but I don't think I'll see it until next week) so this is just my favorite idea of who she is. It's rated T for some Tusken violence that will appear later.

* * *

I mentioned the flaw in my age to Reena when she returned from Mos Eisley today. After we had taken off our head wraps and let our hair go loose, she sat me down and told me the story yet again, only with slight changes.

She said I was born a long time ago. My mother had been captured by the sand-people two months before I was supposed to be born. She had been taken near the tall, pointy, machine-things that the sand-people often smashed to pieces trying to get that wet stuff (I honestly don't know what those machines or the wet stuff is; all I know is that the wet stuff is clear and that it's usually given to the banthas or put into porridge). The reason my mother had been caught was not that she had been out by herself, but that she had unexpectedly gone into labor. The sand-people found her, and simply carried her away. Reena, unlike the ruthless men and frightened women of the tribe, felt pity for my mother. She knew almost as soon as Mother was brought into camp, that the pregnancy was not going well, and that the beatings she had received only added to the problem. Reena risked her life to be there for my mother. Fortunately, the men of tribe went on another raid that evening and the other women refused to leave their tents after dark. My mother's labor pains stopped momentarily late that night. It was then that Reena spoke to her and learned that she and her husband had no expectation that I would survive the entire nine months. But Reena had begun trying to treat her as soon as she was left in the prisoner tent. I was born prematurely, but whatever Reena and done had given both me and my mother the strength to survive, at least for the moment. Mother held me at night, and Reena hid me in her tent during the day.

A new born baby is hard to keep a secret, especially in tents and among a people who hate anyone who is not of their tribe. To prevent their finding me, Reena used a very primitive form of carbon freezing to keep me quite during the day and woke me up at night so my mother could hold me.

I can hardly believe it, but I actually laugh when Reena tells me about the carbonite. She gives me a reproachful look, but I keep laughing. I finally take a breath and manage to say, "The lizard."

Now Reena understands, and laughs, too.

Carbon freezing had been uses by the sand-people as a means of food preservation. But when Reena was a little girl, she had managed to catch a dune-lizard and put it alive into one of the unused compartments. Needless to say, her mother was not amused when dinner jumped at her and ran out of the tent. Reena got her hide tanned and didn't get dinner that night. After hearing this story when I was eight, I did the same thing. If Reena hadn't told me the story just the day before, I probably would have got my hide tanned, too. As it was we both had a good laugh and she asked me not to do that again.

We soon stop laughing and Reena continues with the story. In using carbon freeze this way, she managed to keep me hidden for almost a month.

Mother grew weaker and weaker each day. Finally, Reena stopped bringing me to her. She could not hid me from the other members of her tribe for long. But they both hoped to keep me hidden until it was safe – preferably when she and my mother would be able to escape the tribe.

But it was not to be.

It was evening when my mother's daily beating was ended. She was tied up in the prisoner's tent and both Mother and Reena felt the end was near and that some doom hung over both my mother and the camp. Reena woke me and carried me to the tent while it was still light out. She laid me down and freed my mother's hands. She tried to make my mother drink something, but it was too late. Her body had broken under the strain of the treatment from the other sand-people. For an hour, Mother cradled me in her arms, speaking to me thing I couldn't understand or remember. In that time she also wrote a letter for me, explaining everything I might want to know about my family should I and my curiosity be allowed to grow. Then Reena took me and the sealed letter back to her own tent.

That night, my mother died. Shortly after, the entire camp was burned.

Tears were streaming down my face as I tried to understand how much they had both sacrificed for me. I hadn't known about the way Reena hid me, or the way she risked everything to help mother and me, or the sleepless nights so Mother could hold me, or the pain Mother went through just forcing herself to survive one more day for her little girl, or the letter.

Reena pulled the note from her pocket and handed it to me. It was yellowed with time, but still sealed. On the outside we some strange black markings I couldn't understand. I looked questioningly at Reena through my tears.

"'To my only daughter, Rey,'" Reena told me. "I asked her what it said. She wished to write her name on it, too, but her strength gave out after writing yours and her hand slipped." She pointed to the long streak on the paper.

I stared at the note, the only thing Mother had been able to leave me, and I couldn't read it. I couldn't even identify my own name among the markings. I speak Tusken and the smallest amount of Huttese. But Tusken has no written language, and I don't know about Huttese. As I continued to stare at the note, Reena began to tell of the tribe's destruction.

After returning me and the note to carbon freeze, she meant to return to my mother. She had cut a secret opening in the back of the prisoner tent when my mother had arrived so she could avoid the guards. She started to enter but stopped moving when she saw a glowing blue rod cut through the canvas. Reena backed out of the tent but sat nearby and listened. She told me she couldn't understand what was said, but the young man who had entered had no doubt loved my mother. She heard my mother's last breath, and the boy's subdued anguish at losing her. But the sorrow turned to anger, fury, and hatred. She saw the blue rod again, and looked around to the front of the tent just in time to see it slice through the guards. Reena had watched as the boy killed others, and soon realized that he meant to destroy the camp. I was safely hidden she hoped; and, should he happen to find me, even in carbon freeze I was obviously not Tusken. So Reena fled the camp. She didn't glance back. She just ran.

She returned at the first sunset the next day to find the camp burned to the ground. She tore through the ashes and burnt canvas of what had been her tent trying to find me. She didn't care that her hands were horribly burnt in the process. When she found me, she woke me and held me in her arms as she cried over the loss of her friend and home. Even though she had been beaten and practically shunned by the tribe, it was the only place she knew where she was sure of a bed and food. Now she had nothing except an infant and the memories. She returned me to carbon freeze, deciding to leave me that way until she could be sure she could care for me and keep us both from starving.

I refused to let it sink in how long she traveled before she came here and woke me again. I knew it had been years, but I desperately wanted to believe I still had family out there – my mother's family. Once she found this place, she woke me and began to raise me. It was difficult for us at first, because I was blind from the carbon freeze for some time. She had to leave me in the tent at times so she could work. But leaving a blind child in tent near a people that would kill her if they knew she wasn't a Tusken had been terrifying for her. But we managed until my sight returned when I was three, and now, after more than fourteen years since coming here, the other Tuskens have never suspected that I was anything other than sand-girl.

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Author's Note: I honestly don't know how far this story will go. Everything that I want to say about Rey should be revealed by the end of the next chapter, but I have ideas of how I could continue, and I probably will.


	3. Death of a Mentor

Reena and I sat quietly as I tried to take in what I could. I had always thought myself a Tusken, but they had killed my mother. I had hoped that one day I could find my blood family, but I couldn't keep from thinking that if there was a chance that I had had any siblings, I would probably be their grandchildren's age. Even though I am covered in sweat, I shiver at the thought and try to shove it to the back of my mind. I can't think like that. I have to hope I can find someone– my father, a sibling… anyone.

I look at the strange markings on the letter in my hand. "What language did she speak?" I ask, looking up at Reena.

"I don't know what it was called," she sighs. "Huttese was the only one we both understood, but it was not her first language."

"She spoke the language from Mos Eisely didn't she?" I had heard Reena complain about needing to learn a new language many times when I was younger.

"Yes," she says after a moment's thought, "I think so."

"Can you teach me?" I ask, eager to take a step towards understanding Mother's letter.

"I suppose I could," Reena replies giving me a smile.

I remember her lessons to me in Huttese and know she will probably not alter her lesson style. I am not disappointed. She gives me my first phrase, and it takes me three tries to get it right:

 _"Who are you?"_

Reena smiles at me and quietly claps her hands in approval. "You may become one of them yet," she tells me, then laughs at the face I make at the thought of being anywhere near or like the people from Mos Eisely.

"Your mother was not a Tusken, child," she reminds me quietly.

I nod, knowing that one day I may have to return to those who should have been my people.

"Next line, Rey," she says, snapping me out of my moping state.

I know what the next line will mean even before she tells me. She gives me my second phrase. This time it takes me five tries before I can say it right:

" _My name is Rey._ "

The words sound strange to me, but somehow they feel right. They don't hurt my throat the way Tuskan does, and I don't end up spitting on everything like I do when I speak Huttese. I smile and say it again even louder, imagining introducing myself to my father.

Suddenly, all thoughts of my family are pushed away by a sense of dread. Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it. Both gaffi stick are behind Reena and I know we have to duck. I don't know how I did it, but in an instant I feel I have shoved Reena to the ground and have managed to get both gaffi stick into our hands.

Everything seems to have gone into slow motion. Two shots fly in through the canvas, pass through the area where our heads had been not one moment before, and then exit through the canvas on the opposite sides they entered. I hear two bodies fall just outside the canvas where the shots left. I jump to my feet as the Tusken raiders brake into the tent. I knock the rifle out of the first Tusken's hand and hit the second in the head with the butt of my gaffi stick. The first seems stunned, and the second is knocked out. Reena is up now. We are surrounded and don't have much room. It is difficult to keep back-to-back, and as a result our defense is shaky to say the least. I don't know how long the fight has lasted, but we seem to be holding our own.

I don't see it, and I barely hear her cry, but I know Reena is suddenly in pain. I whip around to see her on the ground, her legs twisted at odd angles.

For one moment, everything stops. I can't move. Reena and I simply stare at each other, not wanting to say goodbye, yet knowing it's the end. I have always known what Reena was feeling but now her thoughts are completely bare to me. But thoughts and emotions are jumbled at first and I can't separate them now.

 _Shmi_ – the first word I can sense through her fear. I don't know what it means.

She is afraid, but for me, not herself.

 _Rey, my child._

 _I'm here._ I feel my heart as it is crushed in the loneliness that I know is coming.

 _I love you._

 _I …_

Time snaps, and so does something inside me. I close my eyes and look away as a Tusken kills the only woman who had loved me the way my mother would have. I don't know how, but the ends of my gaffi stick erupt with lightening and I turn and strike him down, killing him. As of yet, none of my hits were fatal, but now I don't hold myself back. They will kill me too if I don't. Two more die at the end of my weapon before the others have the sense to leave.

I am alone, staring out the opening in the tent, tears flowing down my face to my chin before falling to my clothes or the ground.

I kneel by Reena, closing her eyes and pulling the gaffi stick from her chest. I bend closer and kiss her forehead.

"…love you too, Mother" I finish my earlier thought in a whisper. Despite her insistence that she was not my mother, I am sure Mother would not have minded if I gave Reena that name in thanks for all she did for me. If anyone deserved that title from me, it was Reena.

I stand, picking up one of the porridge canteens, my head-wrap and goggles, and my gaffi stick. I pause for a moment before leaving. Before I can change my mind I go back to Reena's body and take the leather cord and crystal she always wore around her neck. I kiss her one last time and run out of the tent. I stop outside just long enough to light the tent on fire. I don't have time to bury her properly, but I won't have _them_ touching her.

As I run from the camp, not even trying to hold back my tears, I realize that as long as I am in this desert, everyone I love will be taken from me.

I can never love anyone ever again.

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Author's Note: I'm not going to say it's completed yet, but I don't know when I will be publishing another chapter. These first 3 were the main ones I wanted to publish before The Force Awakens is officially released on the 18th. I think I will either end it with Chapter 4 being the letter, or continue Rey's story, including her meetings with Finn (who I personally hope is Lando's son) and Han and Leia Solo. How a meeting with Luke will go will probably depend on who is under Kylo Ren's mask. As a side note, I have heard a theory that Jar Jar is the one under the mask. I find that highly unlikely, but it sure is a fun and slightly unnerving theory to think about.


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